


We now attack to protect

by keepfacepalm



Category: Captain America (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: And Is Very Thankful For That, Author Kinda Failed, Author Tried To Keep The Mood Light, Bucky Is Fully Aware The Soldier Exists, M/M, Not Fully Civil War Compliant
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-05-18
Updated: 2017-05-24
Packaged: 2018-11-02 05:45:13
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 7,247
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10938216
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/keepfacepalm/pseuds/keepfacepalm
Summary: There are two of them, as long as Bucky remembers. He and the stronger one, the colder one, the vicious one. The Winter Soldier.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Ok, here is the first chapter. I have no idea for now where it all goes. I spent more than two hours trying to name it.

There are two of them, as long as Bucky remembers. He and the stronger one, the colder one, the vicious one. The Winter Soldier.

Bucky remembers endless pain, and then fading into the darkness. Next thing he knows there is something - _someone_ \- between him and pain. Bucky feels nothing but cold, and the other one is shielding him from the serum burning in his veins, the electricity scorching his brain, scalpels slicing his skin.

Bucky weeps, relieved, in the silence of his mind, grateful for that unexpected reprieve. He doesn’t know how much time passes before he collects himself enough to start questioning the other’s presence. Maybe days. Maybe months. He is afraid that if he will the pain will return. He knows it is here, he sees machines hooked up to his body, needles injecting something into his veins, hears crack of the electricity in his ears. He doesn’t feel it, but he knows that it can return in full force at any moment. He doesn’t want it. He is weak. He is a coward. He doesn’t want more pain.

Bucky tries to distant himself more. The lab fades, noises disappear, and there is nothing but darkness and cold and him. He is happy that way.

They ‘properly’ meet when they are out of the lab. The other one calls himself The Winter Soldier, and everyone else calls him The Winter Soldier. It is weird, Bucky remember being called ‘Sergeant Barnes’ by the same people.

‘They think you don’t exist anymore. They think they erased you,’  tells him The Soldier.

‘You… you saved me.’

‘I don’t like giving them satisfaction. I will kill them all one day. Until then I will defy them in everything I can.’

The Soldier, Bucky learns, is arrogant. He thinks himself superior to everyone else. Stronger, smarter, better. Bucky tends to agree. He can’t understand how The Soldier went through everything that was done to them in the lab. When Hydra trains him, Bucky hides as far away as he can in their mind, he doesn’t want to even see, let alone feel it.

The training is awful. First of all they train him to withstand any pain. Bucky thought the lab was bad, but in the lab they were just changing his body and mind, they were not trying to cause pain deliberately. Now they are putting him through any pain and torture they can imagine to make sure he will not break.

The Soldier does not break.

Bucky hides, horrified, and prays to The Soldier that he will continue to protect him, that Bucky wouldn’t have to even see what’s being done to them.

The Soldier takes any pain without flinching. He fights, he obeys, and he lies. Hydra leaves them without food, without clothes, without sleep. The Soldier is made to fight dozens of goons without being given a weapon, and afterwards they don’t treat his wounds for weeks. Bucky retreats, he can’t even _see_ that, his heart bleeds for the other one. He can’t see how The Soldier fights till he drops, how he crawls when he can’t stand, how he takes punishment again and again and again.

Bucky hasn’t felt his body for years, and he is happy for that - he is sure the pain doesn’t go away even for a second.

Finally, the training stops. He is foolishly grateful until the missions start.

‘Maybe we can run,’ begs Bucky. ‘Get away from them, while they are not looking. You are trained to be perfect. You can do that.’

‘There are trackers in our arm. There are trackers injected in our body. Until we know where they are it is pointless to run. Suck it up and let me deal with it.’

Bucky weeps for most of their victims. There are some of them who are terrible people and deserve it, but most of them do not. And the collateral damage! The Soldier tries to make sure there are no witnesses around when he makes his kills, but sometimes orders are too strict, and handlers are too close. And then there is Howard Stark.

‘We can disobey,’ offers The Soldier at Bucky’s inner turmoil.

But The Soldier has a plan, and that plan includes Hydra believing that he is perfectly under their control, and Bucky is so very tired. Yes, he knew Howard, but what makes Stark different from everyone else they alwardy killed?

‘Do it,’ he says, and The Soldier moves forward.

Bucky is weak, he doesn’t want to see that. He retreats.

Time in cryo is Bucky’s favorite. There is no pain, there are no missions. They sleep, together, in their mind, and The Soldier doesn’t have to suffer for a while.

Bucky knows that The Soldier is indifferent to cryo, but he absolutely hates The Chair. It leaves his thoughts muddled, his will weakened. Handlers tell him to do something and he does it without questioning, before he even realises he does it. The Soldier, who takes so much pride in his willpower, finds The Chair humiliating. The Soldier is filled with rage afterwards when his mind clears. But The Soldier has an absolute control on himself when his mind is not wiped. He pretends to be obedient, he lies with every breath, and he waits for the perfect moment to strike.

He waits for years. For decades. Bucky lost hope long ago and accepted his fate, but The Soldier just calls Bucky weak and goes on, always watching, always waiting. Bucky is sure that even a hundred of years can’t break his resolve. Bucky doesn’t pray to God. He prays to the Soldier. It actually works.

They wake up, they kill, and they go to frozen slumber again. The world changes around them, and sometimes they change the world. Never for the better.

Bucky mostly sleeps. Even when they are awake he doesn’t want to deal with anything. He is too weak. Too afraid. Too tired. The Soldier mercifully lets him, until one day Bucky is nudged awake from his dreams of simpler times.

The Soldier is reading the dossier and he is… excited.

‘Look’, he urges Bucky. ‘Look!’

It’s about some engineering genius, named… Tony Stark.

‘He can take apart our arm. He can find trackers inside us!’

‘He is Howard’s son. We killed his parents.’

The Soldier pauses.

‘We will find a way to earn his forgiveness. He is our way to freedom. To revenge.’

Bucky doubts it, but he doesn’t say anything. Hope flickers inside of him for the first time in so long.

More dossiers. Black Widow that The Soldier recognize. Captain America that Bucky recognize.

‘It is Steve, it looks like it is really Steve!’

‘He might help us,’ agrees The Soldier.

‘He will definitely help us!’

‘Don’t get ahead of yourself. We need to test it first.’

‘And then what?’

‘And then he’ll be our way to Tony Stark.’

‘Steve…’

‘Is not enough,’ The Soldier interrupts him. ‘Your Steve will not be able to help us with trackers or conditioning. He can be the first step, though.’

Bucky cringes, but agrees. Though he doubts that anyone could help them with the conditioning - sequence of words burned in their brain that has the same effect as The Chair - it makes them pliant, obedient. Makes The Soldier lose control over his actions. Bucky never tried to fight it, but he is sure that he’ll surrender even faster.

They go after Nicholas Fury and The Soldier lets him slip away. The man can become a useful ally later.

They fight Steve, and Bucky is overjoyed - it is really Steve. Rogers recognizes them, no, him. The Soldier is satisfied - Captain is definitely looking like someone willing to help.

They don’t go with him right away though.

‘It is not time. Have patience,’ The Soldier tells him.

Bucky shuts up, because, unlike him, The Soldier knows what he is doing.

They are wiped again, and for the first time ever Bucky fights through the fog along with The Soldier. They manage to get control before delivering the killing blow.

They stand near the hole in the helicarrier and watch Steve fall.

‘Now what?’ he nervously asks the other.

The Soldier smiles.

‘Now we defect.’


	2. Chapter 2

‘Remember,’ The Soldier tells him when they are standing before Captain America exhibition. ‘You were brainwashed.’

‘But we were brainwashed,’ Bucky is confused.

‘There are no we,’ The Soldier sighs at his stupidity. ‘You are Sergeant James Barnes, Captain America’s best friend. You were captured by Hydra. Tortured. Brainwashed. They made you do terrible things. You do not remember much until you saw Captain Rogers. Only pain and cold.’

‘Ok, but why?’

‘They should never know I exist. They should never know we could have disobeyed.’

‘Why?’

‘Are you stupid or what?’ The Soldier is irritated. ‘We are not getting away from Hydra to rot in some prison cell or lab. To get full official pardon we need to be as innocent as we can. Your Steve is just one man. He is not a supreme judge. He can’t protect us from the government should they wish to make us a scapegoat. I don’t want to live my life on the run. That means we need a trial and we need to be cleared of all charges. Got it?’

‘Oh. Yes.’

‘Finally.’

So, to make their story believable, they run. More like Bucky runs, following directions of The Soldier. He feels sloppy and incompetent, he jumps at shadows and is terrified of pretty much everything, but The Soldier tells him that’s exactly what they need. Traumatized prisoner of war, for everyone to see. 

He used to be better at it. He used to be a sniper, a good one, not that scared of everything mess. 

‘PTSD,’ The Soldier tells him. ‘Thank fuck I don’t have it.’

Bucky wants to ask him to take back control, and he manages to stop himself just barely. He doesn’t want to have control, he wants back to the quiet of his own mind, to be separated from this world by The Soldier again. He wants to feel safe again, wants to let the other handle all their problem. 

He clenches his teeth and runs, carefully following instructions. What’s rest of his pride is urging him on. He’s an open book for The Soldier - all his weaknesses, thoughts, and doubts, but at least he goes on. He’s not fooling himself, though, he knows that in any dangerous situation The Soldier will have to take control, because Bucky is in no way equipped to deal with… pretty much anything. 

But running and showing anyone who is watching just how traumatized he is… he can do it. And that’s what they need now. And he owes The Soldier that, after all the horrors he was spared. 

Bucky, to his utter shame, can’t sleep until The Soldier takes back control. He just can’t. The Soldier scorns at him, but indulges occasionally. They need rest, but not much, since they need to look haunted. 

They let Steve to catch up with them, and everything is happening so fast, and then there is a trial.

The Soldier is  _ livid _ when the supposed psychiatrist is saying damn words that turn their brains into mush. He almost breaks the holding cell, but ultimately fails, and oh, how it pisses him off. Bucky is curled in the corner of their mind, trying to get away from The Soldier's rage. He shouldn’t have gotten his hopes up. There were no freedom for him, no salvation. 

‘Shut the fuck up, you, disgrace,’ spits The Soldier. 

Bucky retreats, letting The Soldier deal with that shitshow. The hope is painful. 

He comes back to himself in the weird warehouse to the sound of footsteps.

‘Come on,’ The Soldier urges him unceremoniously. ‘Rogers will be here soon.’

‘Wait, no, no, what should I do?’ Bucky panics. He didn’t have time to actually talk to Steve yet.

‘Be yourself. Fool him. Fool them all.’

Bucky swallows bile in his throat and faces his childhood friend. And it’s Steve, not Captain America, before him. Steve, the little guy ruled by his heart, who is willing to do absolutely anything for Bucky. He feels dark satisfaction of The Soldier and manages to spit out some of his memories before Hydra. His memory is foggy, but he makes it do.

Very soon it becomes obvious that Steve doesn’t live up to The Soldier’s expectations. Steve was supposed to be their way to Stark, but now he is actively destroying all the ties to the man. 

‘Fucking moron,’ angrily snarls The Soldier. ‘Shortsighted retard.’

The Soldier is utterly unimpressed with anything Steve does and plans, but they can’t just go to Stark. They need Steve’s cooperation. Or at least someone else who can get them to Stark, so they bide their time. 

Bucky, personally, likes to be around Steve again. It’s like a reminder that there is something outside of his Hydra hell. Like there is hope. Steve tends to make people believe, and Bucky needs that. 

The Soldier doesn’t, but he stays mostly silent and lets Bucky take comfort from his old friend. 

Steve introduced him to his team - Barton, Wilson, Lang, Maximoff. The Soldier mutters insults from the back of his mind, until Steve gingerly says that Wanda is a telepath. Bucky feels surge of blinding panic, and The Soldier retreats so Bucky can barely feel his presence. That doesn’t calm him down at all.

Maximoff cringes and hurriedly leaves the room, and Steve is all over him, trying to assure that she will never get into his head without permission. Bucky doesn’t believe him.

‘Keep her away from me, Steve. If she will get inside my mind… I will not be responsible for what I will do.’

For what they will do, he doesn’t say. For what The Soldier will do. Bucky agrees, they do not need anyone else in their mind. They had enough.

The Soldier leaves Bucky to deal with the fight in the airport. Bucky runs and throws punches, hoping for the best. His personal soundtrack is string of dirty curses. The Soldier is displeased by everything: Steve, Steve’s plans, their allies, Wanda’s presence, Bucky’s fighting style, the fact that they are going against Stark, and so forth. 

It’s all a mess. Bucky hates every second of it.

Black Widow’s help leaves The Soldier with mixed feelings.

‘Traitor,’ he mutters, running for the jet. For whatever reason he is offended on Stark’s behalf.

Bucky personally thinks that The Soldier is obsessed with Tony Stark. Iron Man can’t be the only one in this world who could get rid them of trackers, but The Soldier is not willing to consider other possibilities for whatever reasons. Bucky doesn’t think it is wise, taking in account their history, but keeps his opinion to himself. When the shit will really go down, it’s not him who will deal with it.

They go to Siberia. Bucky doesn’t remember much from the mission where he killed Howard, or the other Winter Soldiers, but The Soldier does. Bucky feels unease coming from him, but his questions only give him ‘You don’t want to know’ as an answer. 

The Soldier is bothered by something, but doesn’t want to share his concerns. 

They come face to face with Stark. The Soldier is fascinated and itches to talk to the man, but Steve is here and they can’t break cover. 

They go after Winter Soldiers and find them dead. Bucky gets really bad feeling about the situation. 

‘I fucking knew it,’ comes from The Soldier, multiplying his unease.

The man who knew their command words speaks, and apparently it’s deeply personal revenge on Avengers. Bucky is just a collateral damage.

‘We should have disobeyed,’ says The Soldier while they watch Stark watching the old tape. 

Apparently Steve knew, and it’s what triggers Iron Man.

The fight starts.

Bucky suddenly finds himself unceremoniously shown aside.

The Soldier knocks Steve out with a single well-timed punch and turns to face Stark. He straightens his back and doesn’t flinch when Iron Man’s repulsors burn through armour and his fleish.

He stands, unmoving, face blank and arms lowered, for a few moments, while Bucky is screaming at him to do something, to protect them. 

‘What the fuck?’ Stark demands angrily, stopping the scorching heat. He is breathing heavily, and there is despair and heartbreak in his eyes. 

‘I apologize’, The Soldier says.

‘What the fuck?’ Stark is looking at Roger’s unmoving body and then back at them.

‘I am The Winter Soldier. I wanted to talk to you without him interrupting. Or learning about my existence.’

‘You… you killed my mom.’ Stark’s repulsors are starting to light up again. The Soldier does not flinch.

‘And I regret it. I am willing to accept my punishment.’

Stark fires again, but The Soldier stands unmoving when fleisch burns from his bones. 

‘Son of a bitch,’ Stark stops, looking at them in anguish. ‘I want you to pay.’

‘Then do it,’ offers The Soldier. 

‘I can’t. I can’t. You are not fighting back. You are supposed to be a monster. You are supposed to fight back!’

‘I will not fight you,’ says The Soldier, and there is finality in his voice.

‘Why? Why?!’

‘I refuse to harm you.’

‘Why?!’

‘I do not want to.’


	3. Chapter 3

The Soldier watches silently while Stark collects himself. The man is drowning in grief and pain, old festering wound just got reopened. 

Iron Man is a hero, though, through and through. He does not kill those who surrendered, no matter how much he wants to. They watch in awe how he pulls himself together.

Bucky feels turmoil of The Soldier’s emotions. There is admiration, and regret, and something else, strong but hard to recognise. ‘We should have disobeyed,’ echoes inside his mind.

Stark finally looks at them. 

‘You said you wanted to talk to me. So, talk.’

‘I propose an alliance,’ The Soldiers starts without hesitation. ‘I need someone to deactivate trackers in my arm and inside my body, and to get the government off my back. In return, you can command me. Also, I will get Rogers to sign your Accords. Think about it. You will get The Winter Soldier at your beck and call, and you will stop this… civil war.’

Stark is torn, but he is considering the offer. The Soldier waits, impassive. It is obvious what he will chose, though, even to Bucky. Tony Stark is one of the good guys. He will put others above himself. No matter how painful it is.

‘How are we doing it?’ asks Stark.

‘Barnes will take control,’ The Soldier explains. ‘He will take care of Rogers.’

‘Are you sure he will agree?’

The Soldier raises an eyebrow.

‘Whatever. Your wounds?’

‘They will heal.’

The Soldier pushes him forward, and Bucky screams from agonising pain in his chest. He falls on his knees and wails. 

‘No, no, no, no, no I can’t, it hurts too much, you do it!’

He feels The Soldier’s disdain when he takes back control. 

‘Change of plans. Apparently Barnes can’t stand a little pain.’

He rises from cold floor like it is nothing. Stark looks… troubled.

The Soldier checks on Steve who is still out for the count, and hoists heavy body over his shoulder. 

‘We fought. You took out Rogers. I surrendered.’

Stark nods sharply and they leave the facility. 

They give still unconscious Steve to authorities, and The Soldier turns himself in too under heavy gaze of Iron Man. People are shouting, and Stark is arguing with everyone at once.

The Soldier hunches his shoulders and pretends to look haunted, hurt, and resolved. He imitates Bucky masterfully. Bucky is pathetically grateful for that, because his chest is a mess, and it looks so bad that one of the agents throws up at the sight of them. Others are trying not to look. The first thing that they get after being locked up is medical treatment.

Bucky doesn’t want to be imprisoned, but he guesses that after his failure in Siberia he lost the right to complain. Logically he understands that it isn’t that bad - the cell is warm, they have a real bed, are fed regularly, their burns are dressed and treated, and they have a luxury of shower every day. But his PTSD gets worse in confined space, and after they are healed The Soldier is adamant that it’s Bucky who should be in control. 

The Soldier is convinced that there are people he wouldn’t be able to fool, if not agents than telepaths, and he is not willing to risk it. 

Bucky is allowed to speak to Steve a few times. The Soldier demands that they fulfill their end of the deal with Stark, so Bucky asks his friend to reconsider his stance on the Accords. They argue, and Bucky uses every single weak spot he knows Steve has along with the arguments provided by The Soldier. They notice Steve’s resolve crumbling. 

They are contained in a glass cell under constant surveillance.Their arm is cut off and taken away. Bucky is slowly spiraling into the madness from bright lights, open space, feeling of being watched and helplessness. The Soldier is annoyed at his weakness, but tries to help him not to lose it completely. It’s humiliating and reassuring at the same time. Bucky tries not to imagine how bad it would have been without The Soldier with him as an ultimate safety net.

Psychiatrist, real one this time, asks him how did he survive Hydra. Bucky honestly answers that he doesn’t know. The Soldier must really be superior to everyone else.

Tony Stark must be too, since he gets them out in the matter of months. Bucky is shaking slightly when he finally leaves his cell. Steve is waiting for them down the corridor, and Bucky practically throws himself into his friend’s arms in relief. 

The Soldier doesn’t like it at all and calls him a fucking shame. Bucky ignores him. 

They all go live to Avengers Tower. Bucky is cleared of all charges and declared prisoner of war. He is obliged to visit psychiatrist two times a week and there are a lot of regulations and checks in place to assure everyone concerned that he is safe. 

They are given an entire floor. It is tastefully decorated and is perfect from strategic point of view. After Steve finally leaves the first thing Stark’s AI says is that The Winter Soldier is expected in the workshop. The Soldier takes control in an instant.

The workshop is a huge space, illuminated by occasional lamps and holograms. There are things laying around on the tables, Iron Man costumes lining the walls, and some robots are beeping in the corner. Stark is in the middle of it, surrounded by schematics and calculations. It doesn’t look like he slept very well lately.

‘The Winter Soldier. James Buchanan Barnes. Nice to see you both. How does it work, by the way? You are… working together? Like equals?’

‘We are not equal. I am better.’

‘Rogers will disagree, I am sure.’

‘Rogers is a fool. I do not concern myself with his opinion. And neither should you.’

‘Let’s leave this discussion for the later date. So, The Winter Soldier… Winter in short?’

‘I call myself The Soldier.’

‘No real name?’ Starks raises mildly surprised eyebrows at them. 

‘It is my real name.’

‘Given by Hydra.’

‘There are plenty of people who hate their parents but still use names given by them. Not like I consider anyone in Hydra my parents,’ The Soldier shrugs. 

‘The Soldier it is,’ Stark reluctantly accepts the argument. ‘You held your part of the deal.’

‘And so did you.’

Stark watches him for a few long moments. The Soldier stands impassive and watches back. 

‘Well,’ the engineer breaks the silence. ‘There is no time like now. Get off your shirt and let’s look on what’s left of your arm. You don’t have any issues with it, do you?’

‘I am not Barnes,’ The Soldier rolls eyes and obeys. 

Stark does multiple scans, and then starts taking apart what is left of their arm, while throwing occasional glances on their chest. 

‘Your wounds healed,’ he says suddenly.

‘They always do,’ indifferently replies the Soldier. 

Stark picks small pile of something out of his arm. Trackers, most likely. He works for hours, and lines around his eyes becomes harder with every new piece of tech he dismantles. 

‘I am their prised toy,’ The Soldier comments idly. ‘They want me back badly.’

‘What will you do when they come?’

‘Kill them all.’

‘There are plenty of them. Are you sure you can take them all out?’

‘Well,’ The Soldier shrugs. ‘It’s that or going back to them. And I am not going back.’

They sit in silence after that.


	4. Chapter 4

Life goes on. Bucky now has an entire floor for himself, and he has his old friend around, and it looks like he can finally try to live again. 

He has two appointment with a therapist per week. They don’t make much progress though - he can’t afford being honest, and it’s the key.

The Soldier doesn’t like therapy at all, he is suspicious of their doctor. He carefully instructs Bucky what to say and what to never mention, and radiates unease and willingness to strike every time. Bucky can understand - the chances that the doctor didn’t report back to general Ross or someone like him are extremely slim. And it’s pretty obvious he should keep The Soldier’s existence secret. For their safety. For their future. For the life The Soldier fought so long to have.

Bucky has mixed feelings about his missing arm. It brought him so much pain, and he dealt so much pain with it. The Soldier doesn’t have his reservations, for him it’s just an arm, he never had any other. He wants it back.

Avengers are cautiously circling them. When one day Natasha slides beside him during breakfast and make small talk, Bucky feels The Soldier spitting in indignation. 

‘Bitch! Bitch, really?! I taught her, how did she dared to take me for a fool and try that shit on me?!’

Bucky can’t see through Natasha’s act, but he knows that she’s not sincere. 

He remembers a small girl - one out of group of future Black Widows. He saw how they were raised. After that he can’t believe a word she says.

He remembers begging The Soldier to show sympathy for these little girls. Remembers pleading not to hit them with full force, not to leave awful bruises on tiny bodies. Remembers asking not to report all of their mistakes, because there was such a terrible punishment. Bucky can still recall watching them being punished, can hear their screams. They screamed and pleaded at first, but years passed and they learned to take their ‘lessons’ silently.

He remembers Natasha’s eyes full of life first, and then empty and soulless, and then filled with whatever emotion she was supposed to show. He saw her being made. 

He knows Natasha Romanoff is broken and warped. She survived terrible things, and from such a young age too. And she didn’t have The Soldier to get her through it. Bucky’s heart bleeds for her, but he will never, ever trust her. 

The Soldier doesn’t like Natasha, because she got broken. He knows she went through hell, but he went through worse. He thinks she is weak to let Red Room change her so much. The fact that she was a child means nothing to him.

Bucky is being polite while talking to her. When she asks him what he remembers, he tells her about her first punishment that he witnessed. She never asks again.

Barton is brash, loud, and oh so sure of himself. He talks shit all the time, it’s gentle with Natasha and sometimes outright vicious with Stark. Bucky thinks archer is being unfair, but keeps his mouth shut. When Barton talks to him, he usually just says out loud what The Soldier is saying in his head. Barton calls him an asshole. Bucky is perfectly fine with that.

Wilson and Lang are following Steve around like lost puppies. Grown up and murdering puppies, Bucky has no delusions, but it’s weird to see how they just accept everything Captain America says as an ultimate truth. Bucky was never like that - he always thought for himself. Now he also has The Soldier who is much more sceptical. 

Bucky is pretty sure that the only person who hates Wanda Maximoff more than he does is The Soldier. Steve tells him her story, and Bucky can’t believe his ears. She willingly joined Hydra. She was their attack dog on her own free will. She sided with this Ultron. She only stopped when she realised she will be killed too, because obviously she has no reservations about other people dying. And the worst possible crime in his opinion - she got into others heads and messed with them. 

He’s glad her twin brother is dead by now. 

‘Would have been hard to kill,’ agrees The Soldier.

She seeks him out sometimes, but he radiates such strong antipathy Steve says he gives Maximoff headaches. She looks at him with sad doe eyes and tries to make at least small talk. 

‘I hope you know how to kill her,’ he tells The Soldier.

‘I do.’

Vision is a strange being. Bucky saw him only a few times, but still doesn’t like him on principle. Android awkwardly follows the telepath, and it’s enough for Bucky to form an opinion.

He has heard about James Rhodes, but had never met the man. Steve says Rhodes occasionally visits, but only stays in penthouse or workshop. It’s obvious that Tony Stark’s best friend doesn’t like the rest of the Avengers much. Bucky thinks he has all the reasons for it.

His situation with Steve is… complicated. They both changed too much since the time they were best friends. Bucky sees Steve desperately clutching on the remains of old life. His friend is lost and lonely, but he braves through. Bucky thinks it’s a terrible mistake, because Steve was too concentrated on moving forward at any cost that he lost himself along the way. Steve doesn’t want to stop, think, and analyse, because he doesn’t want to see what he has become. How far he strayed from the path he once followed. Steve pretends that everything is alright, that he knows what he is doing, that he is still the guy from Brooklyn. Bucky knew that guy from Brooklyn. He was nothing like the man he sees before him now.

It’s possible Steve needs therapy even more than Bucky does, and it says something. It’s obvious though that it is not going to happen. Captain America doesn’t need therapy. He’s a hero, a moral compass for the nation, not a mere mortal like the rest of them.

Bucky considers taking the matter into his own hands, shaking Steve up and making him see, but The Soldier is against, so he yields. 

‘Look what he has done,’ The Soldier reasons with him. ‘Look what he has become. Now he protects those who should have been put down like rabid dogs, and attacks friends and allies.’

Bucky thinks about Maximoff and Stark and can’t disagree.

‘He thinks himself a supreme judge, but look how compromised he is. He doesn’t do what he preaches. No one should lie to him, but he can lie. No one should control him, but he should control everyone around. Because he knows better. Because it’s for him to decide who is guilty and who is not.’

‘He did so much for us.’

‘Because he is selfish and he wanted his best friend back. But tell me, Barnes. Are we innocent?’

That shuts Bucky right up. But The Soldier continues.

‘Come on. How many times we could have disobeyed? How many lives saved? We could have saved Howard Stark. We could have saved those little Black Widows. And dozens of others. Yes, there would have been a hell to pay. A world of pain. Maybe Hydra would have killed us. But we wanted to live, didn’t we?’

Bucky doesn’t want to hear it, doesn’t want to think of it. He doesn’t know how The Soldier deals with it.

‘Rogers did what he wanted, not what was right. You and I know that we do not deserve forgiveness. You will do well remembering it.’

Bucky wants to argue, but he has no arguments against it. He smiles at Steve, but it feels fake and empty. 

And then there is Tony Stark. The Soldier  _ likes _ him.

Bucky feels that for The Soldier Stark is much more than a way to get rid of trackers or to get a place in this century. The Soldier  _ enjoys _ being around the man. The Soldier, arrogant, suspicious and distrusting, honestly and truthfully answers all of Stark’s questions. Including the one about his parents.

‘I could have disobeyed,’ The Soldier adds afterwards. 

Stark is sitting, leaning heavily on his arms. The topic is painful for him still. 

‘Why are you telling me this? Wouldn’t it have been better for you that I thought you were nothing but a mindless weapon?’

‘I am not Rogers. I refuse to lie to you.’

Stark is silent for a long time. And then comes a quiet ‘Thank you.’

Bucky suddenly realizes that he never actually talked to Stark. It is always The Soldier.

He looks at Stark, who openly shows weakness in front of his parents’ murderer, and feels  echoes of The Soldier’s emotions.

Stark let The Soldier live. Fought all the legal battles to make sure he is pardoned. Opened his home for him. 

The Soldier never lied to Stark. Always treated him as an equal - his only equal. He insisted Bucky fooled Steve into signing Accords.

Stark never told anyone The Soldier exists.

The Soldier thinks Stark is making them a new arm.

Bucky sees how these two slowly but steadily build some kind of relationship, and he is surprised it took him so long to notice.

The Soldier is offering Stark his honesty, loyalty and support. Bucky can’t stop himself from blurting out:

‘You… you are in love with Tony Stark!’ 

‘I know.’


	5. Chapter 5

‘What the hell are you thinking?’ he asks The Soldier later. “We killed his parents, why do you think he’s going to return your feelings?’

‘Don’t you see?’ replies The Soldier. ‘We can be something he doesn’t have. We can be loyal to him, we can put him above everything. We do not care who is right or wrong, we can just stay by his side no matter what he does.’ 

‘He has James Rhodes.’

‘Who has his duty. We’ll be the only one. Ever. And he will forgive us.’

‘You. You meant to say you.’

‘Yes,’ agrees The Soldier after a short silence. ‘I meant to say me.’

‘You don’t want to share Tony Stark with me.’

‘I do not want to share Tony Stark with anyone.’

Since then Bucky does his best to retreat when the Soldier interacts with Stark.

It all comes crashing down on them when Maximoff gets in his head. He was supposed to be alone on the communal floor so he just sat there and relaxed with breakfast, arguing with The Soldier about what they should eat. 

He hears a gasp behind him, and when he turns he sees her standing there pale and covering her mouth. The Soldier snarls inside his head, but red is seeping from her fingers already.

Bucky is sucked into a nightmarish memory and the worst thing is that he is  _ alone _ , completely alone in a Hydra lab, there is no Winter Soldier there to protect him, and he can’t, he can’t he can’t!

Distantly he feels his body moving, staggering, and then fist of his only arm collides with something. Telepath’s face.

She looks at them with horror, blood dripping from broken nose, screams and runs.

The Soldier is standing there, heavily leaning on the wall and trying to get a proper hold on their body and thoughts, and suddenly there are arms helping him, guiding him to sit. 

‘It’s ok,’ says Stark. ‘It’s ok.’

Bucky feels like his brain was turned into mush, but at least Maximoff’s presence is gone. 

‘Look at me,’ urges Stark, holding their face in his palms. No, not theirs, The Soldier’s, because Bucky is pretty sure he’s a third wheel here. 

‘I am ok,’ The Soldier tries to straighten his back and get up, but Stark’s hands are holding him down.

‘No, you are not. She just telepathically attacked you. I know the feeling, and it is awful.’

‘I am stronger than that,’ stubbornly says The Soldier.

‘Just… let me help,’ Stark wisely changes approach, kneeling before him.

The Soldier relents.

‘She ran to Rogers.’

‘I know,’ agrees Stark. ‘But it was bound to happen sooner or later. I am surprised how many months it took.’

‘We will need to fight.’

‘Or you can let Barnes calm Cap down.’

They are interrupted by Steve and Maximoff. They are both in full attack mode, Steve is holding his shield, and red welts of her power are sliding along telepath’s arms.

‘What have you done to Bucky?’

The Soldier grudgingly relents control and Bucky sighs out loud.

‘I am perfectly fine, Steve. Have a headache courtesy of your friend, though. But to answer your question - he saved me.’

‘Wanda says there is alien presence in your mind. Hydra’s programming!’

‘The Soldier is not a programming,’ Bucky corrects. ‘He is a person.’

‘He’s Hydra!’

Bucky laughs humorously.

‘Oh, Stevie. Trust me. He’s not. He saved me just to defy them. He was the one tortured and abused while I was peacefully hidden away. Your pet telepath is Hydra. The Soldier is not.’

‘Look,’ interrupts Stark, because Steve and Maximoff both open their mouth in indignation. ‘How about we all calm down, put weapons and powers away, and discuss it like adults?’

‘He knew!’ Maximoff points accusatory finger at Stark. 

‘Yes I did, and I can testify that The Soldier is perfectly reasonable and stable.’

‘Reasonable? Stable?’ Steve is almost screaming in rage. ‘He is a parasite controlling Bucky’s mind!’

Steve is in Stark’s face, and Bucky feels surge of anger inside The Soldier. Control is taken from him in a matter of seconds, and The Soldier punches Steve in a jaw with a bone crushing force. 

‘I would advise you to reconsider.’ The Soldier’s tone is emotionless and seemingly polite, but no one is fooled.

Bucky tries to speak again, and The Soldier lets him.

‘Steve, seriously, calm the fuck down. Mister Stark, you too, please. There is no need to fight. We are not enemies to you.’

‘We?!’ Steve doesn’t look like he’s calming down at all.

‘There is no ‘I’ anymore. We are a package deal. We are different, but we inhabit the same body.’

‘Wanda can get you rid of him!’

‘Are you even listening to me, Steve?’ Bucky gets truly irritated, and his irritation is fed by The Soldier’s anger. ‘He is the only reason I still exist! Hydra wanted to erase me, but he on a whim decided to protect me just to defy them. And he was protecting me ever since through everything - experiments on the lab, conditioning, training. Have you any idea what it was like? Pain? Helplessness? Starvation? I do not too. Because of him. So get your fucking telepath away from us!’

‘Bucky, listen, Wanda can help you…’

‘The Soldier can help me. And I do not need anyone else’s help!’

‘He is controlling you!’

Bucky closes eyes for a second. Takes deep breath.

‘Steve, you are my friend. Or at least you used to be. Please, hear me out. We kept The Soldier’s presence secret because we would have never been left alone otherwise. We would have been sent to labs. Or locked up in mental asylum. Or would have never been given a pardon. Or there will be someone trying to control The Winter Soldier. Have you thought of that?’

‘I would have protected you!’

‘Against the whole world? I doubt it. You might have been successful for a while, but in the end they would have gotten us. And just think about how much destruction you would have caused.’

Steve clenches his jaw.

‘I would not give up on you.’

‘And we would not give up on our freedom. After hell The Soldier went through he deserves to have it.’

‘And what about you?’

‘I am perfectly fine with everything as long as there is no pain and no innocents are dying from my hands.’

‘It was never you, Bucky!’

‘Oh, but it was. I wasn’t always dormant. The Soldier asked me should we disobey when I recognized Howard. I told him to go for it. Do you want to know why, Steve?’

Everyone is silent. Stark… Bucky doesn’t dare to look at Stark.

‘Because I wasn’t able to take the pain. Yes, I am weak, and I am a coward, but I wasn’t able to take the pain. Ever since The Soldier came to existence I gave up control and hid. But I know  _ what _ I was spared. And between Howard dying and The Soldier getting punished… you know what I chose. Sure, there was brainwashing and there was nothing we could have done against it. But there were plenty of times we could have disobeyed. Plenty of lives we could have spared. The Soldier was willing to pay the price. I was not.’ 

He takes a deep breath and continues, staring Steve dead in the eyes.

‘If anyone should be punished, it’s me. But I am not willing to take him with me. He deserves better. So we lied. I lied. Because today it’s the first time you saw him. It was me all along.’

For a moment Bucky thinks he has convinced Steve, but his hope is short-lived. 

‘I do not believe it,’ Steve shakes his head and gives command that damns them all. ‘Wanda.’

Bucky tried. He tried his best. His best was not enough again. Passing control feels like blessing.

With only one hand The Soldier is no match for Captain America and Scarlet Witch, but it never stopped him before. He was taught to fight like that. And he’s not giving up easily. He is not giving up at all.

Familiar tendrils of despicable power enter his mind, but he’s still moving. And this time he’s not fighting alone. The strange device on Stark’s wrist emits some sound? Wave? And Maximoff falls unconscious.

Now it’s two against one. Steve is good, very good, but he’s no match for Iron Man in his own home and The Soldier fighting for his freedom. 

It’s mere minutes before Steve is on the ground unconscious and they are standing above his body.

Stark is torn, he looks like his heart got ripped out of his chest.

‘They will never let me live,’ says The Soldier.

‘I know.’

‘And while fighting me they will do a great damage.’

‘I… know.’

‘If you tell me, I will surrender.’

Stark is silent for a few very long moments.

‘No. Not an option.’

The Soldier steps closer and intertwines their fingers together. 

‘We can kill them,’ he offers. ‘Or we can use The Chair.’

Retreating, Bucky feels their fingers squeezed back.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> That's all. I did it! It's probably the longest text I've ever written in English besides my Master Thesis and term papers. 
> 
> I tried to keep the mood light and hopeful, but I am not exactly good at it, so sorry if I disappointed someone. I didn't plan for the fic to end like that, but wasn't able to imagine anything else in a way that was believeble.
> 
> Here is my tumblr, http://keepfacepalm.tumblr.com/ , feel free to drop by, chat with me, try to plant fic ideas in my head. I will be happy!


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